Proficiency: How I got my song by Leonard Cohen

A couple of weeks ago we were talking about this speech in our Friday evening Proficiency class. Sorry it took me so long to post it. I hope you enjoy it.

For those of you who love listening to stories about music, I also recommend this podcast episode http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/07-hallelujah . It talks about the creative process, and also about Cohen.

Have a good weekend!

All levels: How to add a word to your Vocabulary Notebook

Your vocabulary notebook will be you own personal dictionary, you need a binder (cuaderno de anillas) with separators just like the one below. You will also need to spend some time on it every week.

How to add a word to my vocabulary notebook

When you learn a new word you need at least 5 things

1) new word (+ collocations) 

When you learn a new word you need to know what words collocate with it (e.g you play football) and what prepositions to use with the word (e.g. you go to work on foot)

2) Part of speech-

Is the new word a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, an expression, or an idiom?

3) Phonetics

How to pronounce the new word.

4) Definition (or Translation)

5) An example that is true for you.

So now we know all we need to add when we find a new word, lets have a look at a very simple example: look forward to

1) New word + collocations: 

     -to look forward to (something/ doing something)

2) Part of speech: This word is a phrasal verb.

3) Phonetics: (Don't worry about this to much for the moment, we will be learning the different sounds in class)

      -/tuː lʊk ˈfɔːwəd tuː/

4) Definition: to be thinking with pleasure about something that is going to happen because you expect to enjoy it.

    Translation: tener muchas ganas de (algo/ de hacer algo)

5) An example that is true for you:

     I look forward to learning some new words in my English class.

So the entry in your book should be something like this:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-to look forward to (something/ doing something) (phV):tener muchas ganas de (algo/ de hacer algo)
/tuː lʊk ˈfɔːwəd tuː/
e.g. I look forward to learning some new words in my English class.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have a look at Leticia's notebook, she kindly let me post the first page of her notebook. Isn't it amazing?

That's enough for today, I'll be showing you how to organise your notebook another day.

But don't be lazy and start your notebook straight away!

Exercises:

1) Add the phrasal verb "bump into" You might need to look up the word in a dictionary. You can try this one, it's online and free.

2) Try adding some of the words you learnt in your last class.

.

All levels:-ize or ise?

Many students ask me about the spelling of verbs ending in -ise or -ize, such as realise and organise and whether they should be spelt with  s or z. So I've been doing some research into the subject.

At first I thought that the -ize ending was American and the -ise ending was British, but it turns out that both are accepted in British English just as long as you are consistent within a piece of writing. Nevertheless, I would advise you to use the -ise ending and here is why:

While all verbs can be spelt with s, not all can be spelt with z. Some verbs such as advertise, advise, devise, are never spelt with z, not even in American English. You can check a list of these verbs here.

What Personality Type Are You?

We were talking about personality tests and Carl Jung in class

Here´s the test for you to try.

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp

Once you get your type you can press on you type description and possible careers. Take note of the characteristics mentioned that feel right for you and those that don't. Bring it in to class tomorrow to discuss.

CAE: Kitchen Vocabulary

Yesterday we ran out of time before we could do this exercise. Name all the objects and household appliances in this kitchen e.g. a kettle

Proficiency and CAE: At Long Last, Danny's Reading List

I finally got around to posting my reading list! Sorry for the delay, but it's finally here, and I hope you'll find some good reads on it.

Your homework for this week is to check it out and I'd also like you to do the following:

1) Read the reviews to at least three of the books/comics listed below, if you click on the title it'll send you straight to their goodreads page. At the bottom of each of these pages you'll find the reader's reviews. (Be careful with SPOILERS!) You can also find more customer reviews on Amazon.

2) Once you have chosen a book, print the review that helped you decide (if you don't have a printer just bring it on your mobile phone) You'll have to tell the class why you chose that particular book and not the other two. 

3) Underline or highlight some vocabulary in the reviews that would be useful for your writing task

DANNY'S READING LIST

One Day
(David Nicholls)

Starter for Ten 
(David Nicholls)

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
(Douglas Adams)

The Prestige
(Christopher Priest)

The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes novel
(Anthony Horowitz)

Neverwhere
(Neil Gaiman)

High Fidelity
(Nick Hornby)

The House of Sleep
(Jonathan Coe)

The Rotter's Club
(Jonathan Coe)

V for Vendetta
(Alan Moore, David lloyd)

Bridget Jones's Diary
(Helen Fielding)

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time

(Dava Sobel)

Angela's Ashes
(Frank McCourt)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
Mark Haddon

The Commitments
Roddy Doyle

Rivers of London (The Midnight Riots)
Ben Aaronovitch

SET TEXTS
The set text question is in part 2 of the Writing paper for these exams and is one of five questions you can choose from during this part. Candidates should not attempt the optional set text question in part 2 unless they have the necessary vocabulary and understanding of the text to answer the task set.

Howards End

(E.F. Forster)

An Education
(Nick Hornby)

Proficiency: Christmas Homework

For this Christmas holiday homework I'll be asking for a review of a book and an exposition of some interesting vocabulary. You can choose any book you want just as long as it is in English but I have posted here a list of books by modern British authors which I think contain a lot of interesting language and idiomatic expressions.

Part1: Review

For instructions on how to write your review visit the writing section at the end of your student's book. You have some more interesting resources here. I also highly recommend visiting some online magazines to read some professional reviews and extract some language from them.

Part 2: Vocabulary exposition

Read the book and write down any words or short phrases that are new or difficult to understand, or that are important in the story.

Choose two words, two idioms and two collocations. You´ll explain the meaning of these words, idioms and collocations to the class providing the context (please careful with SPOILERS) and some examples of it's use. (You need to search the internet for common uses of these expressions)


e.g. From Us by David Nicholls

Collocation: to run its course

Context: The main character of the book is woken up by his wife in the middle of the night. He thinks at first that she's scared of burglars and tries to reassure her but it turns out that it is something else that worries her. She says:

"I didn't say anything about burglars. I think our marriage has run its course. Douglas I think I want to leave you."

Meaning: The expression means that something continues until it has finished. In the previous sentence it means that it has continued for a while but now it has reached its natural ending.

Other examples:

The doctor insisted I rested for a few days until the disease had run its course

This new anti-drugs strategy is needed now because the existing EU strategy will have run its course by the end of this year. 

A merry christmas and a happy new year to all of you.

Strong vs weak forms: I can explain

We were seeing in class strong and weak forms.

The strong form of can is/kæn/ but we usually use the weak form  /Kən/

In the video below we hear people saying "I can explain" using mostly the weak form.

The strong form is only used when we stress can because we want to empasise the positive  /kæn/

The negative is always stressed but has a different sound the long vowel ɑː can't /kɑːnt/ 

Exercise:

Find two people who use the strong form ( too see the answers click on the comments below.)

CAE: A tower of Giraffes: Some fun collective nouns

We saw in class some collective nouns A flock of sheep, other examples would be A pack of wolves and A pounce of cats. There are all sorts of strange names for groups of animals. Here is a short exercise with some of the most interesting ones:

Match the collective noun to the right animal:


1. A tower  of  (j)                a. fish
2. A plague of                     b. ants (also swarm)
3. A scourge of                   c. elephants
4. A herd of                        d. lions
5. A parade of                     e. bees
6. A pride of                        f. hyenas
7. An army of                      g. mosquitoes
8. A swarm of                      h. locusts
9. A school of                      i. birds
10. A flock/flight of             j. giraffes
11. A cackle of                    k. cows


Have a nice week!

What I'm really thinking! Reading

Experimenting on shower conversations.

Shower conversations are an idea I got from a TED talk by Sid Efromovich, who speaks seven languages. It is basically talking to yourself which might sound crazy but it's actually a great way to prepare for a real conversation. Modelling how you are going to say something will help you to be more fluent when you get to class.

On Wednesday we´ll be talking about the weekly series run by the Guardian called what I´m really thinking. You can find a link to the index below:

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/what-im-really-thinking

Make sure you choose a job, and prepare a shower conversation.

Take these things into consideration:

1) You'll be telling the class what you read (just a brief summary) and giving your opinion on the text.
2) You can also pose some questions to the class. (Think on what people will say and how you´ll react, it has to be a conversation not a monologue) Some ideas: Would you like to do this job? Why (not)? How would you feel if..?  Is the writer being obnoxious? Should this job even exist? Have you ever felt frustrated when dealing with a...? etc.
3) You should try to use some of the adjectives and collocations we learnt in class.
4) Be prepared to explain any unknown words or idioms as other students might not understand them

Homework 20/08/14: Ted.com

TED is the best thing since sliced bread, it has hundreds of inspirational talks about all kinds of topics from how to be successful to the benefits of being introverted. I can spend hours just watching random stuff.

If you visit TED talks you can choose language English and whichever topic your prefer. Try to find a short talk, maybe from three to ten minutes, and take notes as you watch it. Tomorrow you can tell the class about it.

Here are some of my personal favorites:

David Gallo on underwater creatures
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_gallo_shows_underwater_astonishments

Richard St John on how to reach success
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_st_john_s_8_secrets_of_success

Susan Cain on Introverts and extroverts
http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts

Elizabeth Gilbert on creativity
http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating

(Note: You have a interactive transcript. If you click on a sentence the transcript takes you straight to that part of the video)

FCE Listening: Scottish Accent

I.Gerard Butler on David Letterman


Ana and Eduardo both sent me this fun interview with Scottish actor Gerard Butler on the David Letterman's show, a late night television talk show.

As you listen you can answer the following questions:

1) What does Gerard Butler mostly do when he goes back home to the Highlands in Scotland?
A) He eats a lot of Scottish traditional meals
B) He Sleeps
C) He argues with his mom

2) Where did he sleep when he went to Plockton?
A-In a castle
B-In a B&B
C-He crashed with a married couple.

3) Why did he nearly crash when he was driving his helicopter in Hawaii?
A) A log got in his way
B) He was telling a story
C) It was windy.

II) Sean Connery on David Letterman

 Raquel sent me an old interview with Connery on the BBC, but I chose this one because he does one of the greatest entrances ever!

As you listen fill in the gaps in these sentences.

-Letterman thought Connery had bought the jetpack at ___________(4) round the corner.

-There were rumors that the actor was ________ (5) away.

-In the Orient, being announced dead when you aren't, means ________ (6)

-Sean Connery was in Spain for about _________ (7)

III) John Hannah

 Lucia kindly sent me an extract of a film with John Hannah. I have decided to post a short interview instead as in the extract there are some other accents too. He has probably the strongest accent of the three. So listen carefully and as you do, answer the questions below.

8- John Hannah doesn't like cop shows because...
A- He hates maverick cops
B- All cop shows are the same.
C- The writers aren't very good.

9-Most actors want...
A- To mess about between the scenes
B- To do funny shows
C- Write their own jokes

10-What information does he give away
A-His daughter is one of the characters
B-Somebody dies.
C-A Cardboard cutout of a child is used in the interview room.

Prepare your job interview

You are preparing for a job interview, and most people forget that like with everything else practice makes perfect. So for a real interview you'd have to role play at home, and prepare as many questions as you could, write a list and add possible answers. After the interview add any complicated questions the interviewer asked you that weren't in your list.

The most important thing is to make sure that your answers are appropriate and prove to the company that you are articulate and can solve problems. If they ask you something such as what is your greatest weakness, be honest, but also add something good. If you are disorganised  what are you doing about it.

And always give examples, real things that happened to you and how you solved them.

For your homework choose three questions from this link

https://www.thebalance.com/job-interview-questions-and-answers-2061204


1 Take note of any interesting vocabulary that you could use

You can add them to your vocabulary notebook page on Jobs

2  Think about how you would answer them.

Remember you can take notes,  but don't write whole sentences just a bullet point diagram

We will do a fake interview on Thursday.

Students recommend: Downtown Abbey (TV series)

I'll be posting some recommendations from my students every week. They will be commenting on books, TV series and films, which they have watched and enjoyed in English. Belen, one of my CAE students at Paraninfo has kindly contributed this summary of the TV series Downtown Abbey: 

Downton Abbey is a period tv series about an aristocratic family and all their servants. During 1912, their lives were pretty uneventful, until the dramatical incident of the Titanic happened, where the heir of the fortune and the Dowton Abbey castle dies in the shipwreck. In that moment, the problem to find a new heir turns into the storyline of the drama. 

The earl and countess of Grantham do not have any sons, only three daughters, and they can’t inherit the fortune. The new heir is a distant cousin of the family who works as a lawyer. At first, he does not like the aristocratic family very much because of his modest origin of a middle class family. 

(Careful some spoilers ahead!)

Little by little they realize that he lives in a real world and they accept him. The sophisticated and classist customs of the aristocracy started to change with the arrival of the first world war. The war changes their lifes and their minds. Afterwards, the older daughter of the earl falls in love with the heir and they get married. 

 The tv series talks about the common problems of the society of this age, like the differences between the working class and the high class, the problems of the post war era, an antiquated mentality of the society and the right to vote of the women. 

 I specially recommend this tv series to women, because I think it is the target of a period movie. Also, those people who like stories about the world war and the early 20th centuy.

You can buy the first series here

All levels 2013-09: Learning phonetics (1) (Special guest Annie Bottle)

Are you worried about sounding like Annie bottle* on her famous hit "Relaxing cup of café con leche".



Don't panic! Here is the solution.

This is an excellent phonetics chart from the New English File student's book.

(*Note: To be completely fair with Ms Botella, at least she tried to speak English in public, and despite her strong accent she manages to pronounce most of the words correctly.)

Practice: Match the phonetic vowels to the following words using the pictures to help you. The first one is already done for you.

a) Horse- 6

b) clock

c) Bull

d) Egg

e) Phone

f)  Ear

g) Boy

h) Fish

i) Bike

j) Tree

k) Car
l) Computer
m) Cat
n) Tourist
o) Boot
p) Bird
q) owl
r) chair
s) train
t) up
u) clock

Use the OALD dictionary for any unknown sounds, it's got a phonetic transcription and a button to actually listen to the words.

 

horse

 NOUN

hɔːs ; hɔːrs 

CAE and FCE: What does the fox say?

One of my FCE students reminded me about this song "What does the fox say?" I thought it would be a good idea to use it for learning the sounds of the animals (By the way I think this was the original purpose of the song):

1-Listen to the song and fill in the gaps with the different sounds.
______________________________________________________________________________
ow     meow   toot   tweet   croak  woof  moo  blub  squeek  quack wapapapapow!
_____________________________________________________________________________

1-Dog goes _____
2-Cat goes _____
3-Bird goes _______
4-and mouse goes ______

5-Cow goes ______
6-Frog goes _______
7 and the elephant goes ______

8-Ducks say _______
9 and fish go ________
10 and the seal goes __________

11 the fox goes__________

So mouse goes squeek, but we can also say a mouse squeaks. 

Squeek (noun) to squeak (verb)

2-Listen to the song and fill in the gaps with the different sounds.

1- Mice    (d)              a)hiss
2-Snakes                    b) trumpet
3-Lions                       c) screech
4-Elephants                 d) squeak
5-Parrot                      e) bark
6-Dogs                        f) roar

CAE Intensive: Homework: 04/09/2013 and "Life extension is a pie in the sky"

Your homework for the weekend is:

1) Do the writing task on page 84 of the Expert coursebook. It's an article for a students' magazine so keep it informal, almost conversational, and remember to include all the points mentioned in the instructions. (220-260 words)

2) There was some controversy on an i09 article about life extension. This reminded me of the text we read today in class on how life might change in the following 100 years. 

One of the readers had an interesting point about death check it out and we will discuss it on Monday:

-Screw the rhetoric "death is a part of life". It's sour grapes "If I can't be immortal, at least I can take comfort in knowing no-one else will be either." It's little more than attempting to cope with the hopelessness of dying that terminal patients do.

The human race is a terminal patient. There is a possible cure. That cure could save everyone everywhere from the same inevitable fate of rotting in the ground.

I never said it was easy. I never said it was tomorrow. I said, quite truthfully, that the more funding research is given the greater the likelihood of a solution being found, and the sooner it will be found.

CAE Tuesday 01/10/2013. Open cloze

Today in class we made our own open cloze. Use of English Part 2. 

Fill in the gaps using only one word.

I cannot say (1)          am one of nature's born housewives. For a large part of my 20s and early 30s, I tackled housework the Joan Rivers way. "I hate housework," she once said. "You (2)          the beds, you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start (3) ______ over again."

I did no housework for weeks on end, followed by an exhausting two-day blitz. Then it was back to squalor. It was only (4)          I was sent to write an article on the National Trust (5)         I began to see the benefits, even pleasures, of housework applied consistently and professionally. I discovered that housework can bring its own satisfaction and I set about learning  (6)___          much as I could - not (7)             its own sake, but because I was working full-time and didn't have the time or inclination to devote my life to cleaning.

(8)           of this moment of personal revelation grew a column for Weekend that ran for over two years.

The Housewife's Handbook is the book of the column, but when it came to writing it, I realised that housework - surprisingly - had changed since the column ended in 2005. Housework seemed to be in the air to such an extent that it spawned a prime-time television show, How Clean Is Your House? In (9)          , housework, like everything else, had (10)____ green. It no longer means sloshing gallons of bleach about. People want to clean in a way that is going to do least damage to (11)         , their children and the environment.

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You can read the whole article here

As an extra task you can extract some more vocabulary from the article for your vocabulary notebook, such as:

Bananas go black/ bread goes stale etc.

TOEFL SPEAKING QUESTION 2: The silly Interview

When I was a child there was a game I'd play with my friends, it was a sort of interview to find out how much we had in common with each other. The questions were usually silly, such as, who do you prefer: Lennon or McCartney? or which do you prefer the transformers or the Xmen?

We had to answer using only one word. But as TOEFL students, you could think of as many silly questions as you can and actually give reasons and examples of why you prefer one or another.

Here are some other questions for you to start with.

Which do you prefer:

1) Coke or Pepsi?

2) Hamburger or Pizza?

3) Going to the cinema or to the theatre?

4) Rock or classical music?

5) cats or dogs

6) Tea or cofee?

7) Summer or winter?


Note: Just for fun here are my answers: (Paul McCartney, the X-men, Coke, hamburguer, cinema, rock,  dogs, tea (of course) and winter.

CAE Thursday 2013-9: English Sayings

Don't make a mountain out of a molehill

Today, those of you who finished your exam practice early, made up some endings for these sayings:

1) Rome wasn't...
2) Don't make a mountain out...
3)Once Bitten...
4) One man's meat...
5) Engage brain...
6) Better late...
7) Let's cross that bridge...
8) If you pay peanuts...
9) Why have a dog...

Now I'd like you to match them to their real endings, the first one is done for you:

a)....of a molehill.( 2 Don't make a mountain out...)
b)...built in a day.
c)...is another man's poison.
d)...when we come to it.
e)...than never.
f)...you get monkeys.
g)...and bark yourself?
h)...twice shy.
i)...before mouth.

Tomorrow, we will talk about the meaning of each and every one of these sayings. You might need to explain yourselves in different ways. The following exercise will help you to do precisely that:

EXPLAINING AND PARAPHRASING:

Put these words in the correct order to form ways of explaining and paraphrasing. The first one is done for you:

1 it/ way/ put/ to/ another - To put it another way...
2 is/ that/ say/ to
3 which/ by/ mean/ I
4 simply/ put /to /it
5 just/ which/ means
6 mean/ is/ I/ what/ that/ by
7 trying/ say/ I/ what/ to/ am/ is

And here is an example of what we will be doing in class as a speaking exercise:

-Don't make a mountain out of a molehill, or to put it another way, don't make a serious problem out of something that is not very important. You must never forget the rule "Don't worry, be happy"